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| Thread: Who's REALLY to blame for the continuous downfall of the Heroes series? |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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fred79
Disgraceful
Undefeatable Hero
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posted October 11, 2015 11:32 AM |
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everyone in the list is to be held accountable. i had to put two different versions of fans/buyers of crap products, because the poll cut me off with digit count.
everyone on that list is held accountable because:
1. companies are businesses, and they really don't care what people want, only what they are willing to buy; which is a big reason why consumers get worse and worse products each year, by nearly every company on the planet.
2. people who are paid to promote said garbage, are just as much to blame. it's like being bribed: they didn't have to take the money. they could have invested some actual integrity or effort in their jobs, being that so many people thoughtlessly think their word is a good reason to buy anything.
3. anyone at ubi who took charge of the heroes series after NWC, is directly at fault for thinking that homm4 was such a winner, that they had to continue in the vein, instead of trying to find one with better bloodflow(lol, junkie joke ); ie., homm3. you know i'm right, don't fight me on this. comparing homm3 and homm4 is like comparing a ripe, juicy pear with some homeless guy's crapped-in underwear. one's appetizing; the other will get you committed for eating.
4. if erwan is to blame, then so is trip, by default. he was in charge when homm4 came out, and started the downfall of the series; regardless of if the other rumors are true.
5. consumers of ubi heroes games(and even homm4). simply because, they keep buying this garbage. you buy it, you allow it. if you are purchasing something that you KNOW has a history of being bad quality, then you are directly hindering progress; because the companies ONLY CARE ABOUT ONE THING. and that thing is YOUR MONEY. you give them money, that tells them, in a business sense, that whatever they did was right, and they should continue that, to get more money from you. period.
not blaming the consumers of knowingly snowty products, is like not blaming people with heart disease and obesity, for eating at mcdonalds. you knew it wasn't good for you; everybody knows that. you have no excuse. you cannot HOPE that a big mac will suddenly start being good for you, because it won't. as long as people buy big macs, they'll be on the menu.
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EnergyZ
Legendary Hero
President of MM Wiki
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posted October 11, 2015 11:41 AM |
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You are underestimating Heroes IV. It is quite distant from its predecessors, sure, but it ain't bad, either. Higher than Heroes VII, that's for sure.
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Come and visit the Might and Magic Wikia!
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fred79
Disgraceful
Undefeatable Hero
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posted October 11, 2015 11:42 AM |
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EnergyZ said:
You are underestimating Heroes IV. It is quite distant from its predecessors, sure, but it ain't bad, either. Higher than Heroes VII, that's for sure.
probably because it was made by NWC. 
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SkySlam
Adventuring Hero
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posted October 11, 2015 11:53 AM |
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I was also among those who preordered H6, blinded by the fun I had with TotE.
I didn't forget the terrible state of vanilla H5, but honestly I saw a lot of potential with that game.
I can't say the same about vanilla H6 or even less H7.
H6 was relatively successful because it still fed on TotE, which was extremely well received as far as I know (GOG, Steam, metacritic, personal experience with friends etc), so I'm not lying to myself when I say that Heroes V complete is a great game, that can hold its own against giants like H2 and H3.
After the H6 disaster, I chose not to preorder H7, and I wish many others did the same, but I can't blame the fans for being foolishly hopeful.
With this new title, we are finally seeing the extent of Ubi's failings: H7 will be a big financial/image loss for them... will money speak a language they can understand?
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PandaTar
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Celestial Heavens Mascot
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posted October 11, 2015 11:53 AM |
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master_learn said:
I agree with Zeno and voted about the fans,who give money to Ubi.
I would choose the "all above" button,but I like H4,so I don't blame anybody for creating it.
*HIGHFIVE*
One thing is certain: if this game was really good and deserved a place as a worthy HoMM successor, much less people would be complaining about it, about its mechanics, about its bugs and about anything related to it.
The fault of its currently state is none but everyone who accepts and promotes its continued mediocre existence, from A to Z.
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"Okay. Look. We both said a lot of things that you're going to regret. But I think we can put our differences behind us. For science. You monster."
GlaDOS – Portal 2
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Storm-Giant
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
On the Other Side!
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posted October 11, 2015 12:07 PM |
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alcibiades said:
The blame can never be put on the fans, since they are not the once making the game (you could pin it on the fans, if fans had had decisive input on game design and had made the call in crucial features responsible for the failure of the game, but that is not the case with H7). Thus, the blame must be split between the Ubisoft executives (for underfunding the series), the Ubisoft development team and most importantly Erwan, because his foul vision for H6 still plagues the series to this day. Thus, I cast my vote with Erwan because as lead designer, he has to be the one to take the responsibility.
One remark: I'm pretty sure Erwan is the public face, but there must be a team behind him. While I agree he's responsible for some ridiculous decisions, there are more people to blame for the messes since H6 and forward.
If Erwan is to be pulled out of Ubisoft M&M brand, so should other people go otherwise we might end with the same problems all over again.
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Pavijan
Adventuring Hero
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posted October 11, 2015 12:08 PM |
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Edited by Pavijan at 12:09, 11 Oct 2015.
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fred79 said:
EnergyZ said:
You are underestimating Heroes IV. It is quite distant from its predecessors, sure, but it ain't bad, either. Higher than Heroes VII, that's for sure.
probably because it was made by NWC.
Not at all. You can hate it if you want, but for me it was the Heroes game with the best atmosphere and the best adventure map design. It's greatest problems (unbalanced heroes , and incompetent AI) could be remedied if it got a proper expansion instead of 2 quick cash grabs which contained nothing apart a few lousy campaigns and couple of creatures.
Actually, even with all those flaws, I find myself getting back to it more that Heroes 3, even though 3 is technically better game, nothing beats the feeling of exploration in Heroes 4.
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blob2
Undefeatable Hero
Blob-Ohmos the Second
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posted October 11, 2015 12:09 PM |
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Edited by blob2 at 12:27, 11 Oct 2015.
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Voted Trip Hawking... the guy who "started" it all
Because (even with it's downsides) I still find H4 superior to any Ubisoft franchise iterations, I blame the moment NWC stopped doing those games. And NWC Heroes 5 was shaping to be something interesting...sigh...
The worse thing to happen to the franchise is it becoming an asset of a f*cked-up corporation like Ubisoft. Now wonder they're doing a shi*ty job, if I saw them as a bad company back in the day already. I've had my doubts about them then, and recent years only confirm my thoughts...
It's hard to blame fans, cause we're in a tight spot. On one hand we now that what Ubi is doing is wrong, but we don't want this franchise to die off. We already witnessed it once (it was a close call), and I don't want to be put through it once more. Then again, maybe it's really time to say goodbye?
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fred79
Disgraceful
Undefeatable Hero
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posted October 11, 2015 12:16 PM |
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no, it is never time to say goodbye. think of the batman movie series: different people in charge, different takes on the series. burton's 1st was good, nolan's 1st two were good.
all of ubi's homm games and nwc's homm4 is like the batman movie where batman's suit had nipples.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted October 11, 2015 12:28 PM |
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[quote name=ZenofexStill, HoMM V, despite pioneering a lot of bad things, ended up relatively well, I'll give you that. Even if there was some hope after TotE, the fiasco of Heroes VI should have taught people to be VERY cautios. If there is even one more HoMM game, developed in the same manner, placed in the same universe, headed by the same producer, then the majority of the buyers are idiots, end of story.
And there you go - don't make illogical conclusions. HoMM 5 started out messy - but eventually they swung around ... so what would you think taught THAT to people?
Meanwhile, while Nival got their sh!t together, Black Hole was not, and that's what made H6 a fiasco.
So the fault isn't by the fans because they had no reason to suspect they wouldn't fix things.
The fault is before that - having a super solid budget for H6 and wasting it by appointing a studio not up for the task.
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted October 11, 2015 12:32 PM |
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Storm-Giant said:
One remark: I'm pretty sure Erwan is the public face, but there must be a team behind him. While I agree he's responsible for some ridiculous decisions, there are more people to blame for the messes since H6 and forward.
If Erwan is to be pulled out of Ubisoft M&M brand, so should other people go otherwise we might end with the same problems all over again.
Yes, there are two different questions in play here: 1) Who should take the responsibility, and 2) Who has to go in order for us to get a good game.
As lead designer and chief of staff, the responsibility falls back on Erwan in the last end, but the entire team-Erwan needs to get the kick.
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EnergyZ
Legendary Hero
President of MM Wiki
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posted October 11, 2015 01:30 PM |
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fred79 said:
all of ubi's homm games and nwc's homm4 is like the batman movie where batman's suit had nipples.
Don't you be putting H4 with Ubi's games. It just isn't that bad. Only you seem to be thinking like that.
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Pim18
Known Hero
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posted October 11, 2015 01:42 PM |
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I put the blame on Ubisoft Execs and partly of the fans who preordered 7(which includes myself). I did not preorder 6 and actually missed a lot of it's development process(due to personal issues). So when I picked up a physical copy for like 20 bucks I was quite surprised by the low quality of the game. Infact I was quite angry because I could not play the game properly for about a year(the nvidia townscreen crash thing). I played 6 again after virtous came along and properly patched everything out and I found an unfinished game. There were some good ideas in there but the game was too unfinished to be good.
I preordered 7 because Limbic also made MM10 which I felt was a competent game. So I preordered in the hope that I would get a game that was not great but competent. I did not even get that. I am too blame for the fact that I gave Ubisoft my money knowingly how bad Heroes 6 was. I apologize for that and I have definately learned from it. However the majority of the blame(in my opinion) falls upon Ubisoft and those that decide the funds of the developers. I feel that Limbic tried too hard to make a competent game while being hindered by a low budget so the result is a game that does not crash as much as Heroes 6 did on release but is just utterly boring to play due to flawed design decisions.
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fred79
Disgraceful
Undefeatable Hero
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posted October 11, 2015 03:03 PM |
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EnergyZ said:
fred79 said:
all of ubi's homm games and nwc's homm4 is like the batman movie where batman's suit had nipples.
Don't you be putting H4 with Ubi's games. It just isn't that bad. Only you seem to be thinking like that.
homm4 was the first to break away from the 2d into 3d, so yes, homm4 started it. would you really deny that?
the issue i have with a 3d heroes game, is that the 1st 3 were 2d, and it was a great formula. then, homm4 came out. my dad bought it, played it a little, and hated it. i watched him play, and i remember thinking to myself, "this isn't a heroes game". and it still isn't. you don't go from a winning formula, to another formula, just because the newer format is more popular. especially, if you're going to do something WORSE than what you did before.
heroes games stand alone in the gaming world, for me. what i was introduced to, that i fell in love with, was discontinued as soon as i got my first glimpse of homm4. besides the fact that it looks like a BAD heroes knock-off(it really doesn't look like a heroes game at all), they used horrible graphics, when compared to it's predecessor. if you're going to "upgrade" or "improve", you don't take a step BACKWARD. you improve what's ALREADY GOOD. if i SEE something has changed, and not for the better, i'm not going to bother with the product itself.
i have the same problem with bands who change over time. if you start out as something, then become something else, your name shouldn't be the same. take marilyn manson, for instance. for years manson came out with manson-ish material, and it rocked. then, he started getting older, and he started becoming a goth phil collins. now, he lost most of his oldschool fans, and he's a fatass who doesn't put out music that says "marilyn manson". he puts out music that says only "marilyn". his good songs become more and more of a rarity. it/he's a different product, with the same name.
take another one of my favorite bands: bile. they categorized themselves as "demonic electronic", and fittingly so. their last album, however, made me want to puke. there's a snowing BLUES TRACK on it, next to all the NOW soft-rock. don't get me wrong, i dig blues(like i like a lot of 3d games), but blues(and soft-rock) doesn't say "bile" to me. to have a band that made demonic music meant for the fiends of hell, to start putting out softer bullsnow... they should have changed their name. and they didn't. you go to a concert thinking you're going to release some tension by throwing people around, and instead, everyone's singing "kumbaya" and waving lighters. if i HEAR something is different than it used to be, and it's NOT better, i'm not going to bother with the product. i haven't bought a manson, bile, korn, static-x, deftones, icp, twiztid, etc., album since they all changed(and NOT FOR THE BETTER).
you cannot associate something that was good or great, with something that is altered and appears/sounds/plays like crap, and keep the same title. it just doesn't work. think of books: if you come out with a series, and it's all serial killer gorefests, then you come out with a book IN THE SAME SERIES that talks about soccer moms in suburban U.S., you're going to get some complaints. something along the lines of "hey, i was READING THAT. wtf did you do THAT for!? i was following a storyline, you had me hooked, i was craving more, and you throw in this pretend 'good morning america' mickey-mouse snow?"
do you see what i'm saying? it's not the same game; it HASN'T BEEN since homm4. they can "improve" everything they want, and it STILL ISN'T A HEROES GAME. it's a WARCRAFT RIP-OFF. heroes had it's own thing going, and damnit, it was good. there was no need to change the goddamn formula.
*gets down off his soapbox*
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verriker
Honorable
Legendary Hero
We don't need another 'eroes
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posted October 11, 2015 03:11 PM |
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Alcibiades enunciated everything I have to say better than I think I possibly could, that's all I say here for now lol
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PandaTar
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Celestial Heavens Mascot
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posted October 11, 2015 03:13 PM |
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H4 was the one I most had fun, maybe because it changed the exact things I would expect from H3, although poorly implemented. I expected H5 to continue from that, but bringing back the feeling from H2 and H3 whilst keeping and improving the added elements in H4. That wasn't the thing that happened though.
In the end, I started losing interest when H3 was released, given the Multiplayer feature which started making the game more balanced. H4 made it strange again, as it was in H2.
Anyway, potato.
***
It would be interesting having MM XI on the works, as long as it was made around MM6-8 ways, not like X or 3. It was interesting, MMX, but still think MM7 was the best from those. Didn't play MM6 however. And MMXI being lead by another team and publisher, of course.
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"Okay. Look. We both said a lot of things that you're going to regret. But I think we can put our differences behind us. For science. You monster."
GlaDOS – Portal 2
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Stevie
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted October 11, 2015 03:14 PM |
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Edited by Stevie at 15:39, 11 Oct 2015.
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All of the above, uneven in their influence. Different timelines carrying different impact value converge into one final outcome.
Who do I believe to be at the top of the list? Depends on what takes priority in your eyes. Because then you would ask the question which you believe to be the most appropriate. If your question is "who is responsible for the content of the final product?", then that would probably be Erwan le Breton, as he himself admitted it in the interview me and Galaad took on behalf of HC: "It means you're totally related to everything that's part of the content and the experience of the game. So it's obviously art, and music, and audio, and game design, and story, the lore of the universe [...]". In my opinion, the decline of Heroes in the latest installments associated with his appointment as Creative Director of the brand is no mere coincidence. This man's lack of vision combined with his awkward and intrusive pet peeves in regards to Ashan have lead the game astray from its original Heroes feel. In fact, according to this article he's been quoted to say the following during production: "We want to do a good game but don’t have a vision for how Heroes should be.". And that speaks volumes.
If you ask "who's responsible for the low budget and resources for Heroes 7?", then that would probably lie on the shoulders of Ubisoft higher ups who mistreat this long standing franchise in the manner we can all see. I said it before, I would be surprised if this game received more than half the budget of Heroes 6 as everyone who I spoke with as well as the game itself seem to point in another direction. Ubisoft is also responsible for contracting the studios they did which in reality were not up to the task because of various reasons, main example being Black Hole which had to file for bankruptcy. I don't know for sure if Limbic is following in those footsteps, but just judging from their damage control policies in tandem with Ubisoft's, things don't look too bright. I was outright disgusted when I saw devs publicly apologizing to each and every negative and also positive review on Steam with reassuring promises, but also infuriated when I saw their unprofessional behavior on the Steam forums, letting out their frustrations on the dissatisfied customers reproaching their bad release by deleting their posts. That happened.
There's also the question if the fans are responsible too in some sort of way, and I personally think it's too early to tell. For all we know, things might swing either way, TotE or H6. So it basically comes down to a choice, would you buy and support the product in hope that it gets better in the future, or do you think that it's a lost cause and it's better put out of its misery as soon as possible? There's no right or wrong answer, only time will tell when we'll be able to look in hindsight. This is not to say that the current state of the game with all its flaws and faulty design decisions should be excused, but I find it troubling when one sees only the glass half empty or half full instead of looking at the bigger picture.
Personally, I've chosen to support the game and see it through for this cycle. Yes, right now the game is terrible and mistakes were made, and those who condone them are in my opinion worthy of being blamed for perpetrating such behavior. But I have never supported the game for its shortcomings, and in fact I've been fairly critical about it all along. I'm supporting the game because after all's said and done, I'd rather have a TotE at the end of the day instead of another H6, and no matter how improbable that outcome may be, I'm willing to take my chances.
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Guide to a Great Heroes Game
The Young Traveler
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kiryu133
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Highly illogical
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posted October 11, 2015 03:14 PM |
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It depends what exactly you mean. There are many ways too see this is: Is it the ubi caretakers, enforcing restrictive lore and direction? Is it the devs for lacking the necessary experience/skills? is it the "fans" allowing this to keep happening by buying and supporting the bad? Or is it 3DO/NWC for messing up in the first place? there are many angles you could look at this from and they're all to some degree right. Ubisoft are ruining the brand with snowty restrictions and direction. Limbic are not experienced or skilled enough to handle a franchise with this much prestige. Fans do allow it to happen (though there has been enough backlash now) and 3DO/NWC shouldn't have messed up as much as they did.
H5 tribes was great so Ubi can't be the only one to blame just as H7 isn't the only one to suck so Limbic isn't alone in this either. So in my mind, whatever happened between 5 and 6 is the cause. So what happened there? Could it be so that the lead was replaced? Many of the problems plaguing 6 and 7 aren't present in H5 so what gives?
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It is with a heavy heart that I must announce that the cis are at it again.
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fred79
Disgraceful
Undefeatable Hero
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posted October 11, 2015 03:18 PM |
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lol, my last post is a load of self-important tripe. what it all boils down to is, preferences.
i seriously just don't see why they couldn't have implemented all these new ideas(and some of them are good), on the original layout. the heroes series, for me, from homm4 on, has been like the dark ages, regarding scientific progress.
everyone here has in mind the perfect game, and something that would work for everybody; a wholly moddable game that could satisfy anyone's desires in the heroes world. but ubi doesn't seem to want to make that. beats the snow out of me, why.
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PandaTar
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Celestial Heavens Mascot
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posted October 11, 2015 03:34 PM |
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No matter who'll take charge from hereon in, if any other will take the franchise, or if it'll keep on Ubi's hands, and devs will keep being Limbic.
Something that's really going amiss is something rather simple which most of these companies are overlooking. There IS indeed something that every player likes: a game with few to none technical issues, bugs and crashes. Ain't that simple? That's basic. Companies are failing at that already, instead of considering that the basic thing, the only thing that all fans and costumers will ever agree upon, and they are not building their products upon that simple truth. They fail with the only thing they know for sure, and gamble even further with other decisions and policies.
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"Okay. Look. We both said a lot of things that you're going to regret. But I think we can put our differences behind us. For science. You monster."
GlaDOS – Portal 2
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